Philosophical Perspectives of Language, Roger Stainton
Chapter 3, The Thing Theory of Meaning, Direct Reference
Study Questions
Concepts/Skills
Correspondence
The thing theory of meaning
The idea theory of meaning
The use theory of meaning
semantic productivity
Compositional semantics
extensional or direct reference theory of meaning
functions, arguments, values
denotation
propositional functions
semantic facts
metasemantics
logical connectives
propositions
truth tables
syntactic trees
semantic trees
mother node
sister node
existential quantifier
constituents of a proposition
syntactic form (49)
semantic form
quantifiers
quantificational form
ontological commitments
definite descriptions
indefinite descriptions
bare quantifier
scope ambiguities
wide scope
narrow scope
mediated
disguised descriptions
complex name account of descriptions
According to Stainton, what four questions are theories of meaning designed to handle?
According to Stainton, what is a “phrase book” view of meaning?
Does Stainton prefer a “compositional” model of language or a “phrase book” view? Why?
Explain why the principle of compositionality is necessary.
What major fact about language puts a serious constraint on semantic theories?
How does the notion of semantic productivity place a constraint on a theory of language?
On page 31 Stainton claims that each list on page 30 can be indefinitely extended. How is this fact
important to his explanation of a constraint on the philosophy of language?
How is the semantic productivity constraint relevant to the principle of compositionality?
What is what Stainton calls a phrase book account of meaning? Why, according to Stainton, isn’t a phrase
book account of meaning sufficient?
What is an extensional or direct reference theory of meaning?
Given the theory of direct reference, what is the denotation of an expression (based on semantic type)?
What phenomena in the philosophy of language does a direct reference theory explain particularly well?
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According to Stainton, what is the central task of metasemantics?
Given direct reference, how does one compute the denotations of non-primitive expressions? Please
analyze the following sentence: “Sarah went to the library and James went to the store.”
How does the Direct Reference theory account for the meanings of verbs?
According to Stainton, what is a semantic fact?
According to Stainton, what is a metasemantic fact?
What are the four semantic types that Stainton talks about in Philosophical Perspectives on Language?
What are the three basic building blocks from which Stainton's four semantic types are constructed?
In this chapter on direct reference, how does Stainton represent verbs? (Be specific and use the technical
terminology provided (i.e. argument, etc.))
What is a semantic tree designed to do?
Draw the semantic tree for the following sentence:
Sara sings.
What is a constituent of a proposition?
Give an argument for the need for quantifiers in logic and semantics.
Why can't we account for sentences with quantifiers, such as (Some people hate cats.), by interpreting the
predicate as a function that operates on individuals and the noun phrase as denoting individuals?
Why, according to Stainton/Russell, shouldn’t we accept that the truth value of a sentence is its denotation?
What puzzle does Russell attempt to resolve?
How do direct theories of reference handle statements that are meaningful despite the fact that the subject
of the sentence has no reference?
What is the "complex name account of definite descriptions?”
Why is Russell adamantly opposed to the complex name account of definite descriptions?”
According to Stainton, what two advantages does Russell's theory of descriptions have over the complex
name account of definite descriptions?
the informativeness of some identity statements
the meaningfulness of some statements containing names of entities that do not exist
Produce the semantic tree for the following sentence
Some things have tails.
Give the wide and narrow scope interpretations of the following sentence:
All men are not tall.
Explain how Russell handles the meaningfulness of sentences such as “The round square is red.” that are
meaningful even though the subject of the sentence does not exist
Why, according to Stainton/Russell, shouldn't we accept the model of language that claims that the
denotation (or meaning) of a sentence is its truth value?
Explain Russell's analysis of definite descriptions.
Describe Meinong's analysis of sentences containing definite descriptions.
Consider the following analysis of description as provided by Meinong. How does Russell stick by his theory
of direct reference while escaping the need to classify sentences with non-referring subjects as
meaningless?
Premise 1: Sentences which contain 'the golden mountain,' 'the round square,' and so on are meaningful.
Premise 2: "The golden mountain,' 'the round square,' and so on are the logical subjects of such sentences.
Premise 3: If an expression is the logical subject of a meaningful sentence then what it denotes has "some
kind of being."
Why, according to Stainton, does Russell have to accept Premise 3 of Meinong's argument?
What ontological commitments does Russell's theory of descriptions avoid?
Draw a chart indicating the meaning of each of the various expression types (i.e. names, predicates).
Why does Russell claim that some things with appear to be names are disguised descriptions rather than
names.